Top Movies of Summer (poll)

[Olympic Fan]

There have been a grand total of 1 (one) R-rated animated movies to gross more than $100 million... Ted is the only one. In fact, the only other R-rated animated film I can think of is American Pop, which earned $6 million at the boxoffice in 1981. Fritz the Cat, the other notable Ralph Bakshi animated film, was rated X. Fritz reportedly made something like $175 million from worldwide boxoffice over the years.

-Jason "I agree that a Family Guy movie would be huge - it is a no-brainer... Seth just needs the right idea to make it work" Evans

Jason ... help me since I haven't seen Ted -- just innumerable trailers.

Is Ted actually an animated film? The trailers look like it's a live action film, with real actors and some kind of animatonics with the stuffed bear.

It was my impressiion that the highest grossing R-rated animinated film was South Park -- Bigger, Longer, Uncut ... which did $52 million domestic box office and $83 million worldwide. Still profitable for a $21 million film.

[JasonEvans]

I am a total space cadet.

Ted is not animated... it is live action with a digitally inserted character.

Of course South Park was animated and got an R rating. I cannot believe I forgot about that! Sigh. I am pathetic.

Team America: World Police was technically not animated (they used dolls) but I would consider it in the same general family as an animated film.

Wow, my above post was about as wrong about movies as I can be!! So sorry.

-Jason "pathetic!" Evans

[JasonEvans]

And now the daily Ted vs. Madagascar 3 update:

Thursday, Aug 16th Boxoffice

Ted - $378,885 for a cumulative total of $211,521,305
Mad 3 - $59,277 for a cumulative total of $211,976,677

Ted currently trails by $455,372 (margin was $774,980 yesterday)

-Jason "one day left until it is official" Evans

[camion]

The freshman arrived on campus on Thursday. Summer is officially over, at least in Greenville SC.


Game over.

[JasonEvans]

And... it is over.

The weekend brought no surprises. Bourne Legacy brought in $17 mil, a fairly large 55% drop from its opening weekend. That means it will not come close to having the legs to be a contender in our contest. Not that there ever was a chance of that after its opening weekend failed to even get to $40 mil.

Expendables 2 won the weekend with a modest $28.5 mil. That is a fine figure for that movie, but it ain't going to even make $100 mil total, let alone the $215ish it would need to be a Top 5 contender.

And, most importantly, Ted passed Madagascar 3, rendering our contest essentially over.

Ted made $1,625,000 for a total boxoffice of $213,146,000
Mad 3 made $695,000 for a total boxoffice of $212,672,000

Ted now leads by about $500k and the margin will only grow over time as Ted is a newer film.

Unless someone desperately wants, I think we are all done with this exercise.

We'll be back at it again in late October for the top movies of Winter. Among the contenders: The Hobbit, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Wreck-it Ralph, Flight, Skyfall (Bond), Jack Reacher, This is 40, Les Miserables, and some flick called Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2.

-Jason "well folks, it was fun" Evans

[Tommac]

The $28.5 million was posted on the internet for The Expendable 2 shortly after noon today. I didn't go see it until 2:45. How can they call the box office so early in the day? Enjoyed it btw!!! Some over the top moments but they made the movie all the better.

[JasonEvans]

The $28.5 million was posted on the internet for The Expendable 2 shortly after noon today. I didn't go see it until 2:45. How can they call the box office so early in the day? Enjoyed it btw!!! Some over the top moments but they made the movie all the better.

Well the Sunday numbers, like the ones I quoted, are estimates but the studios have gotten to be very good an analyzing these things and generally come darn close to dead on when it comes to predicting how the Sunday boxoffice will go based on the trends they saw on Friday/Saturday.

It is fairly likely that they will be off by a few hundred thousand on a flick like Expendables... perhaps even a million or $1.5 mil... but it will not make a meaningful difference in that film's overall weekend performance.

-Jason "you sometimes see the Sunday estimates off by a lot if the Sunday weather (especially on the East Coast) is particularly good or bad" Evans

[dball]

Avengers, Spiderman and Batman seem certain. Brave looks good. Oddly not too enthused about a third MIB.

Finally chose Avengers, Spiderman, Batman, Madagascar 3 and Brave.

Pretty close. My 5 are in the Top 6 with Ted (never even knew about this one when we were voting -- not that I would have picked it) just edging Madagascar 3.

[ncexnyc]

Of course picking The Hobbit and Skyfall as two of the Winter hits will be akin to taking an AFAM course at UNC, it's a gimme.

[JasonEvans]

Of course picking The Hobbit and Skyfall as two of the Winter hits will be akin to taking an AFAM course at UNC, it's a gimme.

Really?

I can make an argument against each of them.

The Hobbit - they are doing this thing in 3 parts!??! It was one thing to do LOTR, which was 3 books, in 3 parts but the Hobbit is just 1 book and Jackson is dividing it into 3 films!??!?! Yikes! Nothing is going to happen in part one, I fear. What's more, the bloom is off the Peter Jackson rose. Part of the reason he is making The Hobbit is that no studio in their right mind would give him big money to make a movie other than a perceived Lord of the Rings prequel after King Kong and The Lovely Bones were extremely underwhelming in terms of audience and critical appeal. Yes, The Hobbit will be big, but Jackson showed in King Kong that he can butcher a big budget film and he has burned a lot of his capital with audiences. Oh, and it may be worth noting that those wonderful LOTR films were made almost a decade ago.

Skyfall - Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale are both considered strong films by James Bond standards. Audiences embraced Daniel Craig in the Bond role and the movies were lauded by critics. And yet each of them only made about $160 million dollars at the boxoffice. Most winters is takes around $150 mill to make the Top 5. If a well-reviewed and audience-pleasing Bond is worth $160 mil, what happens if Skyfall is not as good as the last two? If it is just average and that makes 10% less than the previous films, that puts it below the crucial $150 mil mark.

-Jason "I will not argue against Twilight, that's the sure-thing in my mind" Evans

[davekay1971]

The Hobbit - they are doing this thing in 3 parts!??! It was one thing to do LOTR, which was 3 books, in 3 parts but the Hobbit is just 1 book and Jackson is dividing it into 3 films!??!?! Yikes! Nothing is going to happen in part one, I fear. What's more, the bloom is off the Peter Jackson rose. Part of the reason he is making The Hobbit is that no studio in their right mind would give him big money to make a movie other than a perceived Lord of the Rings prequel after King Kong and The Lovely Bones were extremely underwhelming in terms of audience and critical appeal. Yes, The Hobbit will be big, but Jackson showed in King Kong that he can butcher a big budget film and he has burned a lot of his capital with audiences. Oh, and it may be worth noting that those wonderful LOTR films were made almost a decade ago.

The three parts thing only makes sense if Jackson is planning on really mining the appendices of Return of The King, which it appears he is. If he does that, and fleshes them out quite well, that means significant screen time to The White Council and their ramping up and execution of the attack on Dol Guldur.

The way I see it is this: Jackson is probably under some pressure to deliver the movies in something closer to 2 hour chunks. That helps box office, and helps in making a movie developed from a children's book more accessible to children. So the whole 3 movie cycle may be no more than 6-7 hours of screen time (as opposed to the 10-11 hours of the LOTR trilogy).

The first movie will probably give some background to Thror, Thrain, and Thorin, the ring of power that Thror had, the arrival of Smaug, and, hopefully, some background on the dwarves' relationship with Dain, and Dain's history with the goblins of the Misty Mountains. We may even see Gandalf's stealthy trip into Dol Guldur to visit Thrain. That could take a fair amount of screen time and be a relatively exciting opening. Then we get to establishing who Bilbo is (make it short, Peter, we've got some background on the Shire from the LOTR movies). The dwarves arrive, he goes off with them and Gandalf, has his adventures with Trolls and meets Elrond. We get some development on the relationship between Elrond and Gandalf and some development of the Necromancer's threat, the White Council, et al. Our party then leaves Rivendell and gets into their battle with goblins, their escape, meeting Gollum, Bilbo finding the ring, and his escape. Have a big battle between dwarves and Gandalf, goblins and wargs, and finish up the movie with meeting Beorn and a safe haven, only to have Gandalf alerting them that he's going to need to leave them to deal with the Necromancer.

The second movie would then be chock-a-block full of action as it covers the White Council meeting, the development of Saruman and Galadriel, marshalling their forces (rely on ol' PJ to bring armies of elves from Rivendell and Lothlorien to battle), and, of course, the battle, which will probably be a pretty big spectacle. In the same movie, we get Bilbo and the dwarves and their journey through Mirkwood, complete with the battle with the spiders, their subsequent capture by the elves, and their escape from the elves. Finish the movie with the Necromancer defeated by escaping (and the ominous hints that he's probably Sauron), and Bilbo leading the escape and the dwarves landing on the shores of Laketown.

That still leaves, in the third movie, the arrival to Laketown, the development of Bard and the Master, the arrival to the Lonely Mountain, the establishment of the truly wonderful character that is Smaug, Smaug's conversations with Bilbo, Smaug's downfall, the marshalling of the Five Armies, Bilbo's betrayal of Thorin, the Battle of Five Armies, Bilbo's reconciliation with Thorin, and some wrap-up in Rivendell then the Shire.

It's a pretty big story when you go outside of the book and bring in the surrounding story that's alluded to and outlined in the appendices.

[Olympic Fan]

We'll be back at it again in late October for the top movies of Winter. Among the contenders: The Hobbit, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Wreck-it Ralph, Flight, Skyfall (Bond), Jack Reacher, This is 40, Les Miserables, and some flick called Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2.

Don't overlook Hyde Park on the Hudson!

[sporthenry]

Skyfall - Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale are both considered strong films by James Bond standards. Audiences embraced Daniel Craig in the Bond role and the movies were lauded by critics. And yet each of them only made about $160 million dollars at the boxoffice. Most winters is takes around $150 mill to make the Top 5. If a well-reviewed and audience-pleasing Bond is worth $160 mil, what happens if Skyfall is not as good as the last two? If it is just average and that makes 10% less than the previous films, that puts it below the crucial $150 mil mark.

I don't think many thought that Quantum of Solace was a strong film by Bond Standards. Quantum of Solace has a 64% rotten tomatoes which puts it tied with Moonraker at 14th meanwhile Casino Royale is at 94% which is good for fourth best. Metacritic has a similar discrepancy. By all accounts (including my own), Quantum of Solace being the first direct sequel seemed to be a filler movie which made its money b/c everyone loved Casino Royale. That would be backed up by the fact Casino Royale made $40.8 million in its first weekend while Quantum of Solace made $67.5 million in its first weekend yet the films finished $750 k apart even though Casino took place 2 years earlier. So I think what you saw with Quantum of Solace is bad word of mouth and not many repeat viewers but a lot of early exposure meanwhile it was the exact opposite for Casino Royale.

So I think Skyfall will fall between the two with a solid opening week and decent legs. It has been a 4 year hiatus so you should have some build up and while some were turned off by Quantum enough love Craig as Bond to have it open at $50 million plus. Additionally, perhaps this is just my hope, but I can't see Bond following up a mediocre Quantum of Solace with another mediocre film especially after 4 years (even if some of those years were lost b/c of bankruptcy).

Either way, both finished somewhat comfortably in the top 5 (Casino $35 million over #5 and Quantum $25 million over #5).

[JasonEvans]

To be clear, I was not saying I would not be voting for Hobbit or Skyfall. I did not say that the views I expressed were my own views. I was merely making the case that they are not both locks to get into the Top 5 of winter.

-Jason "Hobbit is a tougher case but if Skyfall is just so-so, it won't get to $150 mil -- Bond isn't that big a draw any more" Evans

[ncexnyc]

I’m surprised that anyone would doubt, “The Hobbit.” The first movie, “The Fellowship” took in $313 million, the second, “The Two Towers” $339 million, and the final installment , “Return of the King” was the most successful taking in $377 million. Fans of the books helped propel these movies, just as fans of the Twilight books were responsible for the huge success of that series.

I don’t believe Peter Jackson’s recent track record has any of these die- hard fans worried. In fact they were quite upset when there were rumors that someone else would be running the project.

As for the lapse in time between the upcoming movie and the last movie, that didn’t seem to hurt “SW: The Phantom Menace”, which most fans hardcore Star Wars fans dislike, but it still raked in a cool $431 million.

[bjornolf]

How can you close the competition when The Expendables 2 has yet to run its course?

You have the biggest names in action cinema:

Stallone: Rocky series, Rambo series, Over the Top

Schwarzenegger: Terminator series, Commando, Total Recall, True Lies, Eraser

Bruce Willis: Die Hard series, Fifth Element, Armageddon

Chuck Norris: no more need be said

Jason Statham: Transporter series, Crank, Death Race, Killer Elite

Jet Li: 40 or so martial art classics

Jean Claude Van Dame: Universal Soldier + dozens of cheesey action flicks

Dolph Lundgren: Even worse movies than Van Dame, but more

Randy Couture: The Scorpion King:Rise of a Warrior - possibly the worst movie ever

How can this go wrong? (let's not bring the first of the series into the discussion, it was Expendable)

Wow, you picked Universal Soldier for JCVD? I'd go Bloodsport or Timecop myself as my faves.

As for Dolph Lundgren, I'd at least mention Rocky IV. And don't forget, he was in Universal Soldier too. And I actually enjoyed Showdown in Little Tokyo, with the late Brandon Lee, RIP. I also thought he was pretty good in Johnny Mnemonic. I like him better as a bad guy, personally.

As for Jet Li, if you want to name movies the American audience might know, you have to mention Lethal Weapon 4, The One, Hero, Romeo Must Die, Cradle 2 the Grave, Black Mask, and The Mummy one he was in. He hasn't only been in martial arts movies. Don't forget, he was also in War with Jason Statham, which wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't bad either. While he performs martial arts in all of his movies, most of the movies I mentioned I wouldn't categorize as "martial arts movies".

I won't argue with your choices on Stallone and Schwarzenegger, though you only scratched the surface on both of their resumes, IMHO.

And how do you mention Randy Couture as an actor and leave out Terry Crews of Gamer, Street Kings, and Terminator Salvation fame? His pecs and abs in The Longest Yard alone warrant a mention. :^)

And Liam Hemsworth might just be the biggest trending of the group since his role in Hunger Games. Certainly not a contender for king of action movies yet, I'm just saying he might bring in the crowd too young to remember many of the other guys' films.

[BD80]

Wow, you picked Universal Soldier for JCVD? I'd go Bloodsport or Timecop myself as my faves...

And how do you mention Randy Couture as an actor and leave out Terry Crews of Gamer, Street Kings, and Terminator Salvation fame? His pecs and abs in The Longest Yard alone warrant a mention. :^) ...

I agree on Timecop.

In my defense, I did preface the list as the biggest "names" in action cinema. I never said Couture was an actor.

[bjornolf]

In my defense, I did preface the list as the biggest "names" in action cinema. I never said Couture was an actor.

Great point on Couture. Not sure I'd include him in that list though. Everybody else on your list is a household name for action movie fans. I would bet money that there are action movie fans out there who had no idea who he was before Expendables.

[JasonEvans]

Labor Day has come and gone and even though the contest ended when Ted passed Madagascar 3, I figured it would be worthwhile to post the final numbers for Summer 2012...

1. Avengers - $620,323,000
2. Dark Knight Rises - $433,311,000 *
3. Amazing Spidey - $259,811,000
4. Brave - $232,430,000
5. Ted - $216,124,000
   
6. Madagascar 3 - $214,772,000
7. MIB 3 - $178,856,000
8. Ice Age 4 - $156,149,000
9. SWATH - $155,111,000
10. Prometheus - $126,386,000
11. Magic Mike - $113,427,000
12. Bourne Legacy - $98,313,000 *
13. Dark Shadows - $79,727,000
14. The Campaign -$74,783,000 *
15. Expendables 2 - $68,814,000 *

* - still among the Top Ten movies in theaters last weekend

-Jason "1, 2, 3, 4, 7 for me... I know a lot of folks had 1, 2, 3, 4, 6" Evans

[JNort]

My top 5:

Avengers
Dark Knight Rises
Amazing Spider Man
MiB3
Madagascar 3


3 super hero movies, a popular franchise that has been gone for awhile, and a popular kids movie.

1,2,3,6 and 7

GRRR If I would have known how awesome the previews for Brave would have been I would have taken that over Madgascar 3! I still do not see how Ted got top 5... SMH!